Once a Queen: A Novel

“A fresh, delightful new tale for our wonder-hungry era.”—National Book Award nominee Mitali Perkins

“Readers of Lewis and L’Engle, prepare to be enchanted.”—Sarah Mackenzie, author of The Read-Aloud Family

When fourteen-year-old American Eva Joyce unexpectedly finds herself spending the summer at the mysterious manor house of the English grandmother she’s never met, she soon discovers that her family, the manor staff, and even the house itself are hiding secrets.

With odd things happening in the gardens at night, Eva embarks on a search for answers. Astonishingly, she learns that the Hall’s staff believe portals to other worlds exist—though hidden and steadily disappearing—and that Eva’s grandmother was once a queen in one of those worlds. But her grandmother’s heart is closed to the beauty and pain of the past. Now it’s up to Eva to discover what really happened—and to decide if it’s possible that her favorite childhood fairy tales are true. As she starts unraveling the dangerous secrets around the grandmother who is more than she appears, Eva begins to wonder if she, too, is more than she understood herself to be.